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The Companies

While the year 1300 can be a convenient datę to mark the mercenaries’ emergence as the dominant element in Italian warfare, groups of troops with similar skills, such as French cavalry or Pisań crossbowmen, had long been recruited en bloc to form identifiable units. Not only was this easier for their paymaster, but the efficiency of such units was generally greater because its members knew their leader and had evolved both tactics and discipline.

Documentary records inevitably focus upon commanders, but the groups or Companies that these first condottieri led were still ąuite smali. William della Torre, for example, rosę from the mercenary ranks to appear on the Sienese payroll in 1285 at the head of 114 cavalry. One company of the first decade of the i4th century was some 800 strong, including both horse and foot, but this was an exception. So were those huge roving bands of plunderers who soon caught the eyes of contemporary chroniclers.

The seasonal and often short-term naturę of Italian warfare madę a mercenary’s prospects very uncertain. Ali too often he was obliged to becorne an outlaw to feed himself. Many such men were foreigners and they soon found that their chances of success were greater if they operated in larger bands. Most of the largest companies of the early 14th century were, in fact, amalgamations ofsmaller units drawn together to survive a period ofshortage. Perhaps for this reason they were very democratic. An overall leadership was elected, consultation among the troops preceded decisions, constables and counsellors shared the signing of contracts, and booty was divided according to rank and length of service.

Among these first ‘free companies’ were the Company of Siena operating in Umbria (1322-23), the Company of the Cerruglio operating around Lucca (1329-30) and the Cavalieri della Colomba operating in Lombardy and Tuscany (1334). German knights predominated in these associations, largely because ofeconomic recession in Germany. Catalans also played a vital role, particularly among the leadership, which included William della Torre and Diego de Rat. The Catalan Grand Company which ravaged the Byzantine Empire around this time had its origins among Catalan troops brought to Southern Italy by King Frederick of Aragon. Their leader was, however, an Italian of German extraction, Roger di Flor, who was called ‘The Father of Ali Condottieri’ by the Florentine historian Villani.

Italians were, in fact, already well to the fore although some also had territorial ambitions rather than simply a desire for employment.

The Rocca or Gastle of Spoleto was built and completed by Matteo di Giovannello da Gubbio, called Gattaponi, between 1355 and 1361. It formed a linch-pin in the restoration of Papai authority in Umbria, undertaken by Cardinal Albornoz and his condottieri army. The regularity and simplicity of its plan, as well as its position on top of Monte S. Elia, make it a classic example of I4th century Italian fortification. (After Caciagli)

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